My new 74 Gig Raptor - Seems Sluggish

dominick32 · Feb 7, 2006

Guys. I would like you to take a look at these numbers and tell me if my drive looks comparable. I just finished a Win XP reformat and re-install and the performance is extremely similar to my old SATA WD2500 Ultra 16 drive. I actually do not notice any difference in performance between my WD2500 and my WD74 Raptor. I guess I was just expecting too much out of this little drive. Here are the benchmarking results, let me know if they are showing anything out of the norm:

tom10167 · Feb 8, 2006

Does it seem sluggish in benchmarks or in... real.... life...?

Try loading a few gigantic files(like game maps or 1GB iso files .mpg .vob etc.) and see how it compares to your old drive.

dominick32 · Feb 8, 2006

tom10167 said:
Does it seem sluggish in benchmarks or in... real.... life...?

Try loading a few gigantic files(like game maps or 1GB iso files .mpg .vob etc.) and see how it compares to your old drive.

LOL,
It seems sluggish in real life performance. That is my reasoning for posting benchmarks for you guys to try and distinguish if I am on the slow side or not.

Dom

Galt · Feb 8, 2006

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200512/WD740GD-00FLC0_2.html

Starts at 71.8MB/s, ends at 53.9MB/s. That seems to be right in line with what you're getting.

RoadWarrior · Feb 8, 2006

Yeah, well no surprise to me, I've been telling people the 74G Raptors have been caught up by 2nd generation 16Mb buffer SATA drives, to the extent that you're paying $100 more for that last 5-10% of performance, and RAID performance with them is pretty much limited to what the controller can do, so a lot of times a pair of SATAs will keep up with them. They WERE the fastest drive for a good year after original release. However, time has moved on, they're not good value any more. Raptor fanbois think I'm on crack though.

dominick32 · Feb 8, 2006

Thanks for the responses guys. I guess my numbers do look right in line with WD74 performance. However, I have another one coming in the mail to pair up with in a Raid0 configuration and hopefully get some sustained reads in the 120 MBps area.

Dom

jiggamanjb · Feb 8, 2006

RoadWarrior said:
Yeah, well no surprise to me, I've been telling people the 74G Raptors have been caught up by 2nd generation 16Mb buffer SATA drives, to the extent that you're paying $100 more for that last 5-10% of performance, and RAID performance with them is pretty much limited to what the controller can do, so a lot of times a pair of SATAs will keep up with them. They WERE the fastest drive for a good year after original release. However, time has moved on, they're not good value any more. Raptor fanbois think I'm on crack though.

Sometimes 5-10% means that you have the best PC on the block. I don't mind saying that in my neighborhood.

EvilCloudStrife · Feb 8, 2006

RoadWarrior said:
Yeah, well no surprise to me, I've been telling people the 74G Raptors have been caught up by 2nd generation 16Mb buffer SATA drives, to the extent that you're paying $100 more for that last 5-10% of performance, and RAID performance with them is pretty much limited to what the controller can do, so a lot of times a pair of SATAs will keep up with them. They WERE the fastest drive for a good year after original release. However, time has moved on, they're not good value any more. Raptor fanbois think I'm on crack though.

which is why they are idiots for not moving the new 150gb raptor to sata2 platform

jiggamanjb · Feb 8, 2006

tell me if I'm wrong but, most new Serial ATA-II/300 class 7,200 RPM hard drives can push around 50-55 MB/s sustained transfer rates, whereas the Raptor 74 GB could push around 65 MB/s. The Raptor 150 GB maxes out at around 77 MB/s for a single drive. So why would they move it to a 300MB/sec platform when no drive can even come close to this. Most drives are can barely top out IDE performace.

=ACID RAIN= · Feb 8, 2006

jiggamanjb said:
So why would they move it to a 300MB/sec platform when no drive can even come close to this. Most drives are can barely top out IDE performace.

I have wondered this myself.

Rattle · Feb 8, 2006

the raptors are overrated, I had a 250gb sata with 16mb cache I had partitioned and was using as an OS drive, and when i got the raptor i was very unimpressed...

Rattle · Feb 8, 2006

jiggamanjb said:
tell me if I'm wrong but, most new Serial ATA-II/300 class 7,200 RPM hard drives can push around 50-55 MB/s sustained transfer rates, whereas the Raptor 74 GB could push around 65 MB/s. The Raptor 150 GB maxes out at around 77 MB/s for a single drive. So why would they move it to a 300MB/sec platform when no drive can even come close to this. Most drives are can barely top out IDE performace.

your not wrong

although on of my hitachi's in sig gets over 60 mb/s and with sata 3.0 board beats a raptor severely in bursts also.

The raptors have superior seek times, but with sata 3.0 i think the bandwidth of the buss makes up for the slightly slower seek time of my hitachi..

I LOVE MY HITACHIS !!!!!!!!!!

RoadWarrior · Feb 8, 2006

Yeah, but the averages are for the whole drive. If you buy a 250G 16MB buffer SATA, and make yourself "fast" partitions on the front of it, up to around 100G worth, and just use the rest for backup and bulk storage, you've got most of a 75G Raptors performance on that front end. People notice that "real world" use of these drives seems as fast as a Raptor as opposed to the benchies because they're usually just using the first 50G. So you can buy a 250G drive, throw 66% of the storage capacity away, use the first 75G and have Raptor performance over that 75G, and you'll have an extra $50 in your pocket....

See these...
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/250_str.html
Chop the graph off at 100GB and those Samsungs and Hitachis look real good.
Look at the 75G point on the Samsung's graph and it's still just above 65MB/sec so average over 75G is probably something like 67-68GB/sec.

So if you want fast without $$$, get one or two of those, only use half of it and pocket $$$.

Road Warrior

johan851 · Feb 8, 2006

I have wondered this myself.

SATAII supports some technologies like NCQ, which is a bonus. Also, the bandwidth can be utilized by i-ram type devices, rare as they are. It's really more of a feature upgrade than anything else.

The raptors have superior seek times, but with sata 3.0 i think the bandwidth of the buss makes up for the slightly slower seek time of my hitachi.

That makes absolutely no sense. Bus bandwidth is a how much data it can move in a given amount of time, and seek time is how long it takes before it starts picking up data. A faster bus simply cannot "make up" for slower seek times.

They WERE the fastest drive for a good year after original release. However, time has moved on, they're not good value any more. Raptor fanbois think I'm on crack though.

Mostly because the seek times are still a huge factor. If you bought a raptor looking for fast map loadz in gamez you're going to be disappointed. I don't think Raptors give quite the bang for the buck they used to, but they're still a good investment, and I don't mind spending a little more than the 'sweet spot' amount for a very good drive.

Try loading a few gigantic files(like game maps or 1GB iso files .mpg .vob etc.) and see how it compares to your old drive.

A large file would actually show the least difference between the two drives, since that relies on a sustained transfer rate. You should see the most difference in application load-up times, boot times, installations/uninstallations, multitasking, Windows "snappiness" (browsing files, etc). and that kind of thing.

Rattle · Feb 8, 2006

well lets say the seek time is slower but it could move more data because of the bus "width" would that make up for a slower seek time if the file is big ?

or how bought this, if they are both moving the same size file, a somewhat big file say 1gig

the raptor would start first, but wouldnt the hitachi finish first ?

jiggamanjb · Feb 8, 2006

how bout a quick poll.... If the 74GB Raptor was the same price as a ~250GB 16MB cache, SATA II, etc. Which would you buy??

I would go with the Raptor. I have more than enough room for data storage. So I want the BEST drive possible for games and XP. And if I needed a bigger drive I would go with the 150GB Raptor. It blows every other SATA and SATA II drive out there.

Rattle · Feb 8, 2006

I will never buy a raptor again, I got one for $70 and I still sold it lmao

I would buy that 250 drive for the same money in a heartbeat

JCLW · Feb 8, 2006

dominick32: Your graphs look good. When you buy a Raptor you get fast seek times. Not higher STRs.

KillrBuckeye · Feb 8, 2006

ROFL. Some of you guys crack me up. You can justify spending $200 on premium RAM instead of the $70 value RAM for the sole purpose of running memory 1:1 with the HTT to score better in SuperPi or a completely meaningless memory benchmark (and realize VERY little real-world performance gain), yet spending extra money on a faster hard drive that clearly leads to real-world performance gains is not worthwhile??? Please explain that one to me.

(I'm talking about A64 architecture, of course)

I am a Raptor fanboy and I admit it, but I certainly didn't become one to make myself feel better about my $150 investment. Performance is, without doubt, much better than any 7200rpm drive I've used, and that includes my 320GB WD SATA II with 16MB cache. I even purchased a Raptor for my father for Christmas.

Rattle · Feb 8, 2006

i dont see the difference sorry, i dont FEEL it either between the 80 gig hitachi and the raptor and i certainly dont think that marginal gain is worth $100 extra :shrug:

same reason why I paid $200 for my ram while others paid $300 trying to get 25mhz more out of it.

My new 74 Gig Raptor - Seems Sluggish

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